Multiplayer co-op in a limited social circle

Looking at E3 this year, it's obvious that many games, especially AAA ones, are making multiplayer co-op a major feature. This has presened me with a pretty big dilemma because I play mostly singleplayer games and barely have any friends anymore.

I spent a couple of months a decade ago playing Neverwinter Nights with the same group of friends, but have rarely had any interest in competitive Multiplayer or MMOs since then. I tried WOW, but didn't like it and recently thought about getting into GTAV online but lost interest after I heard about all of the issues it had (GTAV thoroughly scratched my itch for GTA by the time I had finished it anyway).

I have never been into shooters that much and the ones I like best (like the Half-Life games, STALKER and the Darkness) usually haven't even had a multiplayer component. I did try

When I first got a 360, I got a year of XBOXLive Gold, but used it so little I didn't renew after it ran out. I even ended up playing games like Dark Souls 1 & 2 and Mass Effect 3 without ever being online.

I have enjoyed a few multiplayer games, but they rarely keep my interest for longer than a few hours. I liked the Idea of Day Z, but got bored of it quickly. I liked the Riddick multiplayer OK and played some stuff like Left4Dead, but these don't hold my attention like a well designd singleplayer game would.

In the 10 or 15 years that multiplayer has been growing, my circle of friends has really dwindled. On top of that, probably only a couple of people I know IRL are even getting consoles this gen and we all have pretty full schedules which makes it hard to coordinate. I used to like playing fighting games at home and sometimes playing split-screen in games like Splinter Cell, Gears Of War or Portal 2. I prefer network play to split-screen anyway, but between conflicting schedules & distance, it's rare for us to have visitors these days.

I was tempted by Dragon Quest's move toward more multiplayer-focused gameplay but never tried IX because I had no one to play it with and I still don't know if I'll get the chance to play X.

I'm interested in the Division and Rainbow Six Siege. I've fallen away from Assassin's Creed since Brotherhood, but I like the look of Unity and I think Far Cry 4 looks amazing. I'm even thinking of getting into the Destiny alpha/beta/whatever even though I don't like Halo much.

Should I just avoid these games or do I have to get out and make a whole new group of friends to play these with? I could probably play something like Assassin's Creed with my wife or nephew, but we share the same console, so that doesn't help much. I can just jump into stuff like the Division and play with strangers, but I feel like I'm missing out on the experience of playing with a squad of friends like I had with Neverwinter.

What do you think about the move away from singleplayer in the AAA games of this generation?

Couch Co-op is an issue, even for people with friends; most of my friends don't really play games anymore for example. But online co-op it's always pretty easy to find people and even befriend people in the process, just look for co-op threads in various forums including Giant Bomb, I'm sure you'll find someone you enjoy playing with. Or just forum troll, a tried and true method of gaining friends.

It is true that every game being co-op focused is kind of a bad sign for the singleplayer side of things but there's plenty of games that have voluntary and/or involuntary multiplayer elements that function just fine in singleplayer like Dark Souls II. I think it's a worse sign that almost every AAA game is a first or third person shooter.

@fredchuckdave: Yeah, I've spent a lot of time in the last couple of years bitching about games where your only real interaction with the world is shooting. Things have improved in the industry overall, mostly thanks to indie games, but they still seem to be the overwhelming majority among AAA titles.

The era of couch co-op is definitely over. I think Wii-U was trying to bring it back pretty hard, but everyone else seems to be done with it (with the exception of fighting games I guess). Both ways still have the problem of having to get everyone together, but online probably wins for convenience in the end. Really, the biggest incentive for publishers to push online multiplayer seems to be the fact that each participant has to own a separate copy of the game.

I'm willing to put some time into playing some of these games co-op this gen because I think I'll feel like I'm missing out if I buy them and don't at least try these modes. These games certainly seem a lot more interesting to me than the basic deathmatch arenas that made up the bulk of multiplayer options last gen.

Hopefully, If I find that I still don't get much out of multiplayer, most of these will still hod up as singleplayer games. Far Cry 4 and Assassin's creed certainly seem like they would be fine either way, but Destiny and the Division look like they fall more on the MMO side of things.